January 19, 2004

China Steps Up Precaution Against SARS, Bird Flu

China is stepping up precautionary measures against SARS and the bird flu outbreak as the Chinese New Year holidays approaches.

Vice Premier Wu Yi, who is also health minister, called on quarantine, railway and aviation officials to work together to prevent the possible spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome, as hundreds of millions of Chinese travel home to rural villages for the holiday on Thursday.

The central government has said anyone with a fever would be prohibited from boarding a train.

In the fight against bird flu, China has banned chicken imports from flu-hit Vietnam, Japan and South Korea and officials were searching markets for any poultry from those countries.

While pigs haven't been implicated, authorities in southern China on Saturday also publicly burned 800 pigs that had been smuggled in from Vietnam, state media said.

Bird flu has killed at least four people in Vietnam, state media said. China has had no reported cases of the disease, believed transmitted from animals to humans, WHO spokesman Roy Wadia said Sunday.

Sunday newspapers printed pictures of cages of pigs set alight, the animals apparently already dead. It wasn't clear if the dramatic operation was intended strictly as a health precaution or more as a warning to smugglers.

On Saturday, China confirmed two more cases of SARS, bringing the country's total number of cases this season to three. The World Health Organization urged further testing to ensure the diagnoses were correct.

Last year's SARS outbreak was spread by travelers to dozens of countries and killed 774 people worldwide before subsiding in June. In China, 349 people died.

"No effort should be spared in guarding against the spread of the disease," the Health Ministry said in a statement. "We mustn't be caught off guard or relax our vigilance."